A tea party consensus could help determine the GOP nominee. | AP Photos
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In a video Pawlenty’s political action committee released last month, Pawlenty calls the tea party “a welcome, helpful, energetic, forward-leaning organization” and a “great addition to the conservative coalition and the coalition for change in this country.”

Recent polls, however, have suggested that the appeal of the tea party in the broader electorate may be shrinking. A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released last week found that 47 percent of Americans harbor an unfavorable opinion of the movement.

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But the prospective GOP candidates and their representatives – as well as the tea party organizers courting them – have publicly rejected concerns that affiliating with the movement could hurt the eventual 2012 GOP nominee in a match-up with Obama.

In fact, activists seemed more anxious about possible dilution of the brand as candidates try to wrap themselves in the tea party’s “Don’t tread on me” flag and and borrow their rhetoric to win grassroots support, while not fully supporting the movement’s small government ideals.

“I am concerned that the tea party brand will be overexposed as every candidate, viable and not, claims tea party support,” said Ryan Hecker, an activist who last year spearheaded the formation of a widely signed tea party candidate platform called the Contract from America.

This year Hecker has started an online tea party presidential poll. The goal, he said, is partly “to prevent every candidate from making such claims” and also to “help identify the candidate that activists need to rally behind” by giving tea partiers insight into how their fellow activists feel about the field.

Yet, of the five leading vote getters in the poll, which uses run-off methodology and had 50,000 unique respondents as of Tuesday, four had ruled out presidential bids: Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Govs. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Chris Christie of New Jersey. And, while Bachmann, who was polling third, has increasingly hinted that she’ll seek the nomination, she hasn’t been given much of a shot by odds makers.

“Activists are largely disappointed with the current field,” Hecker concluded, bemoaning the failure of an effort by tea party activists and other conservatives to lure Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana into the presidential race.

“My sense is that Mike Pence could have been the candidate to unite the movement,” said Hecker.

Another influential tea party organizer asserted that there simply aren’t many potential presidential candidates who appeal to the movement’s grassroots but also to the independents and swing voters who will be necessary to defeat Obama.

“My fear is that the grassroots will coalesce behind a candidate who appeals to them, but doesn’t have a chance of winning – a Michele Bachmann or (Florida Rep.) Allen West,” said the organizer, who didn’t want to be identified critiquing the field.

“So, to some extent, they’re not going to have a chance to really select the field, they’re just going to have to choose between what’s left over, just like they had to do in 2010.”

The Tea Party Express, which played key roles in helping Angle and O’Donnell win their GOP nominations, doesn’t regret its approach to the 2010 elections, said its chair Amy Kremer at a Tuesday morning breakfast with reporters hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.

But, she added, the group plans to do more vetting of 2012 candidates before tendering endorsement “now that we have a little bit of planning time, where we can lay out a plan.”

“We’re already looking at candidates, interviewing candidates, meeting with candidates and looking at everything about the candidate to determine who we get behind in these elections,” she said.

Kenneth ~ This is such a good article. I wonder where one would contact the party itself, or are we writing to the potential nominees? Is there going to be a "central office finally?" I'm also very put off by CNN co-sponsoring anything Tea Party. They have only denigrated anything not democratic and will present us in a bad light. I would much prefer Fox sponsoring because they've earned it. Plus anyone not democratic watches them or CSPAN. CNN has a large democratic audience and their ratings have dropped significantly. I think this move bodes very badly for the Tea Party with all concerned. More viewers will tune into Fox, the original champion of the Tea Party. As I say they've earned it.

Romney – the former Massachusetts governor who many tea partiers view with suspicion for his championing of a comprehensive health care law that served as a model for the overhaul Obama signed last year – “respects the enthusiasm and energy of the tea party movement and shares common ground with them on the need for fiscal restraint,” said his spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom.

Forget about the tea-freaks. They make up a piddly 15% of one chamber!

Check out Teagons bit on RYANS BOGUS NUMBERS!

Next he will claim Charlie Sheen will be our next president. It's about as likely as Ryans BS projections.

The tax and spending roadmap put forth by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) earlier today "is backed by a set of extremely optimistic assumptions about how the budget would stimulate private investment, hiring, and broad economic growth," National Journal reports.

Key assumptions:

"The unemployment rate will plunge by 2.5 percentage points.

The still-sinking housing market will roar back in a brand new boom.

The federal government will collect $100 billion more in income tax revenues than it otherwise would have.

And that's just in the first year.

By 2015, the forecasters say, unemployment will fall to 4 percent.

By 2021, it will be a nearly unprecedented 2.8 percent."

That unemployment rate would be the lowest level since 1953.

The GOP is selling lies and STILL MORE TAX CUTS FOR CAMPAIGN DONORS... THE ULTRA-RICH WALL STREET BANKERS!!! AGAIN!!!

Tea partiers are little more than radicalized corporate shills. They are nothing but right-wing Republicans by a different name. Government is not the enemy; corporate America is the much bigger danger. Government just doesn't take people's money; it protects and saves money for people. The Koch brothers and their tea-drinking puppets seek to destroy government safeguards that protect our air, water and earth and citizen rights. Corporate America wants people at their mercy, with no government regulation of utility costs, no consumer protections and no equitable tax system that makes the uber rich pay their fair share. Any tea party-endorsed presidential candidate is doomed to lose in 2012.

The Tea Party is not the issue. The overarching problem that faces the U.S. is the catastrophic state of its federal government's finances, and where trillions of dollars of deficits per year are the expected trajectory for over a decade going forward if major reforms are not undertaken. All U.S. citizens should be very concerned. We should not put up with any party or president that does not have this matter as the main priority of his/her/their federal-level agenda. Some of the individual states are making commendable progress with their fiscal management. We need to drag the federal government's finances back to a semblance of sanity and order. That is the issue.